The magistrix’s tea is as fragrant as she: floral white jasmine laced with crushed black pearls for just a touch of deep sea bitterness, an ancient song. Prisca does not drink it, this other woman’s scent and sadness, she who so very nearly made mute her beast.
Nor does Prisca listen to the magistrix’s words, though she must hear them, seated so near (and yet so far) in her queenly state. But oh how she stares with the such large eyes she has, unabashed in the way of predators and children both.
Not even her Clair will know just what it is she's seeing, but it is enough to curl up the corners of her coral lips. So little and so much passes in barbed conversation between magistrix and monster when Prisca has her fill of this visitation. She cuts in with the swift decisiveness of a heavy hand on a bony wrist.
"You must pardon our imposition, magistrix," she says (our sin, never hers alone). "We have felt such urgency to settle in after our move. But we truly do hope to be dear friends. To you and to our beloved cousin. I trust he is well?"
The pleasantries will be forced, but pleasantries nonetheless and there is balance to be found in the unanswered questions weighing the air for both (she and them). Is it possible, the magistrix must wonder, that the girl remembers the long nights Clair and Obretch went deep into the woods for their endless hunts while she, gowned as a princess was whisked to a gold and ivory castle?
How the girl sat so prettily, so obediently when she was told to play with her brother, a child as pale and sickly as she.
“It has been so very long since we have seen our dear cousin. You must give him our love.”
Is it possible, then, that Prisca Laurent remembers too--waking from such vivid nightmares and seeing a man so wretchedly known to her at the foot of her bed (staring and staring in the way she has learned to)? She rises and makes her curtsey, and yet--no further apology for her riddles and revelations, not to the magistrix, nor to her beast. Her narrow back to him is enough of a blow: There is so much I cannot unburden onto you, even you.
She moves without waiting for him to flank her protectively (possessively), for three of her steps to fall in line with a stride of his. She emerges into the ever unnatural sunlight of Silvermoon on her own (perhaps for the first time), pausing to draw slow breath before she begins her descent--down that winding golden bridge lined by nearly identical guards where one in particular waits, hoping to press a poem into her palm as she passes.
Nor does Prisca listen to the magistrix’s words, though she must hear them, seated so near (and yet so far) in her queenly state. But oh how she stares with the such large eyes she has, unabashed in the way of predators and children both.
Not even her Clair will know just what it is she's seeing, but it is enough to curl up the corners of her coral lips. So little and so much passes in barbed conversation between magistrix and monster when Prisca has her fill of this visitation. She cuts in with the swift decisiveness of a heavy hand on a bony wrist.
"You must pardon our imposition, magistrix," she says (our sin, never hers alone). "We have felt such urgency to settle in after our move. But we truly do hope to be dear friends. To you and to our beloved cousin. I trust he is well?"
The pleasantries will be forced, but pleasantries nonetheless and there is balance to be found in the unanswered questions weighing the air for both (she and them). Is it possible, the magistrix must wonder, that the girl remembers the long nights Clair and Obretch went deep into the woods for their endless hunts while she, gowned as a princess was whisked to a gold and ivory castle?
How the girl sat so prettily, so obediently when she was told to play with her brother, a child as pale and sickly as she.
“It has been so very long since we have seen our dear cousin. You must give him our love.”
Is it possible, then, that Prisca Laurent remembers too--waking from such vivid nightmares and seeing a man so wretchedly known to her at the foot of her bed (staring and staring in the way she has learned to)? She rises and makes her curtsey, and yet--no further apology for her riddles and revelations, not to the magistrix, nor to her beast. Her narrow back to him is enough of a blow: There is so much I cannot unburden onto you, even you.
She moves without waiting for him to flank her protectively (possessively), for three of her steps to fall in line with a stride of his. She emerges into the ever unnatural sunlight of Silvermoon on her own (perhaps for the first time), pausing to draw slow breath before she begins her descent--down that winding golden bridge lined by nearly identical guards where one in particular waits, hoping to press a poem into her palm as she passes.
